Hellooo! At the start of May, Bastille announced their Doom Days Club Nights UK Tour and in order to gain access to the ticket presale, I preordered the band's latest album Doom Days. I decided to go for the signed cassette version as my 5 Seconds of Summer She Looks So Perfect tape was looking a bit lonely! The cassette tape was £7.99 plus £1.99 postage, which I thought was pretty reasonable. I also later secured tickets to the Grimsby date of the tour and you can read my review of the show here!
On 14th June (the album release date), my copy of the cassette arrived and I was VERY excited to open it! The clear plastic case holds a red cassette tape, along with a signed lyrics sheet, folded up to fit in the case. I love the shade of red used for the cassette tape itself and how it highlights the use of red on the cover artwork. The tape also features 'Bastille "Doom Days"' printed on each side, along with Side A or B. When the lyrics sheet is folded up into the case, the reverse features the tracklist for the album. I loved the unique take on tracklist, using timestamps rather than track numbers with the first track on the album, Quarter Past Midnight having the time stamp 00:15.
Once you remove the lyrics sheet from the case, it opens out to feature song lyrics, album credits and band thank you's. The background features a variety of images and I like the way it's displayed. The album artwork is signed by all four band members in silver permanent marker, which showed up well against the background! I love that Bastille chose to release signed versions of all formats of the album and I also love that the cover art hasn't been compromised to fit the cassette dimensions and the adjustments made fit the size well. I love how cassettes are making a comeback following the vinyl revival!
The concept of the Doom Days album is that it tells the story of a night out, starting with Quarter Past Midnight. This also matches the timestamps on the tracklist, which show what time on the night out the songs were set. The album has some not so subtle political references, particularly in the titular track Doom Days and has a broad range of styles and themes whilst still sounding cohesive when played from start to finish. If I had to pick my favourites from the album, it's a tough call but I'd have to say Million Pieces, Another Place and Those Nights, however, I have also been loving listening to The Waves and Doom Days lately! I love the production on the album and the use of backing vocals throughout the Doom Days album.
Overall, I love the branding and colour of the cassette and I also really like that Bastille released a range of physical formats of the album and also released signed copies of each format. I normally go for signed CDs however, I'm happy to be adding this one to my VERY small cassette tape collection and I love the album itself!
Thanks for reading!
Sophie
